As you no doubt remember from my blog last week, I attended the Arizona State football game versus Missouri. Apart from the excitement of the game and the enjoyable amount of spirits that I consumed, I experienced something special. There, on that wonderful night, I’m quite sure I experienced a perfect crowd.

A perfect crowd is rare, and a lot of times you don’t even know that you’ve experienced it until after it happens. Sure, we’ve all been to different sporting events where we cheer when the Jumbotron tells us, we clap when something good happens, and figure we’ve done our job as a crowd. That doesn’t count whatsoever.

A perfect mix of situation, people, and energy have to come together, to become what I like to call crowd nirvana. Here are a few of the elements:

Important game: You can’t play against Southern Arizona State Technical College of Sierra Vista. It’s got to be a game that your team needs to win, can win, but also could lose even if it plays well.

Sellout: Empty seats are a buzzkill. (Hey…that sounds familiar.)

Fans who stand: I’ll tell you from years of experience, you can’t make nearly as much noise sitting down.

Affecting the game positively: This is the big one, the one that brings it over the edge. The noise is deafening, you see the quarterback desperately trying to shout out instructions to his teammates, and you can’t hear yourself think. Crowd nirvana can’t be reached on onher, it’s a cumulative effort of the entire game. That’s exactly what I experienced last Friday night. For those who didn’t watch, ASU blew a 14-point lead in the 4th quarter, and nearly lost on a last-second field goal. A normal crowd would allow the collective aura (for lack of a better word) of a blown lead to “push” that field goal in and the self-fulfilling prophecy would be complete. I firmly believe that the will of the crowd, the energy given off, and the pressure put on the kicker by our crowd made that kick go wide. I might be crazy, but that game was special. There was a bond between the players and the fans. ASU needed our help, and the 70,000+ who attended that game delivered. The final play of the game gives a small sample of it — as to be expected, be mindful of the noise.

Feel free to email us (mail@atthebuzzershow.com) or me (david@atthebuzzershow.com) with your favorite stories of being in that special crowd. I can only hope it happens a few more times as Sun Devil Stadium this year.